mere vanities attract their attention and attachment, and draw them away from him. Of this they are often unconscious. They do not perceive how often, or how much, they suffer their thoughts and affections to wander from him. The world and the things of the world imperceptibly occupy their thoughts, and turn them aside from their designed and habitual walk with God. But he always sees all their sinful deviations from the path of duty; and of consequence they appear much more sinful in his view, than their own. Hence says the apostle John, "If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." These numerous deviations and departures from God, which are highly displeasing to him, are the reasons why those who do sometimes walk with God receive no more peculiar tokens of his favor, and so many tokens of his displeasure. They have always reason to expect, when they forget and forsake him, that he will be displeased, and some way or other manifest his displeasure towards them, and continue the manifestations of it, until they return to him and walk with him.

4. If God will walk with those who walk with him, then we may justly conclude that he will cause all those who once sincerely walked with him, to continue walking with him, till they leave the world, and enter into eternal rest. He caused Enoch to walk with him three hundred years, before he translated him to heaven. And there is reason to believe that he caused Adam, and Seth, and Enos, and Cainan, and Mahalaleel, and Jared, and Methuselah, and Lamech, and Noah, to walk with him seven or eight hundred years, though iniquity abounded, and the love of many waxed cold and died. God gives all his sincere friends some peculiar tokens of his favor, which he never gives to those who are not cordially reconciled to him. And one of these peculiar favors is his gracious presence with them, which effectually guards them against both their visible and invisible enemies; so that they cannot cause them to fall away finally. This assurance of final perseverance Christ gave to his true disciples. "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and none is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand." God keeps his eye constantly fixed upon those who once walk with him, and sees all the evils and dangers to which they are exposed from the things of the world, the cares of the world, the business of the world, the men of the world, and from their great moral imperfection and subtle adversary; and he determines to preserve them, and keep them by his almighty

power, through faith, unto salvation. And if God be for them, who can be against them? Upon this solid foundation, the apostle confidently declares, "I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

5. It appears from the nature of walking with God, that those who walk with him in a day of degeneracy, do peculiar service and honor to religion. The world had been gradually degenerating from Seth to Enoch; and had it not been for them, and the other patriarchs who walked with God and maintained his cause, the world would have been destroyed much sooner than it was. This is evident from one single consideration, that God did not destroy it till there was but one man in it who walked with him. Seth, Enoch, and the other pious patriarchs, were the salt of the earth, and the light of the world, till they were taken out of it. Good men have a peculiar opportunity, in a time of great degeneracy, to display the beauty, reality and importance of religion, and to restrain the corruptions of the times. It was evidently owing to the dark times in which Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Šamuel, David and Daniel lived, that they did so much good, and became so celebrated and distinguished in the world. When iniquity abounds, and the love of many nominal saints waxes cold, it tends to fill the minds of those who walk with God with a holy zeal, fortitude and resolution to triumph over all opposition, and to be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the service of the Lord. A day of degeneracy is a trying day to all who profess to walk with God; and, if they are sincere, will make them shine with peculiar lustre. It is really a more trying time to professors than a time of revival of religion. Then insincere professors are naturally, though reluctantly, carried along with the current. But in a time of degeneracy, they are pleasantly and insensibly led astray from God. Though the world be not so universally corrupt now, as it was about the time of Enoch, yet it is more deeply corrupted. Wherever the gospel does not purify, it corrupts the hearts of men. The Christian world is far more corrupt than the heathen world. And though the hearts of many individuals, at this day, are softened and sanctified, yet a vast many more are hardened and corrupted, especially in some places; and in none, perhaps, more than in this. How small is the number of those who walk closely and constantly with God, and, like the patriarchs, condemn the world!

6. This subject calls upon all who have professed to walk with God, to inquire whether they have walked worthy of the

vocation wherewith they are called. Have you received and given evidence of this? Enoch, who walked with God, received testimony that he pleased him; and he gave testimony to the world, that he walked with God, and they saw and hated his testimony. If God gives some tokens of his favor to those who walk with him, you ought to inquire whether he has given any of these tokens to you. Has he given you that peace which the world cannot give? Has he given you the assurance of hope? Has he kept you near to himself, and not suffered you to wander from him? Have you given evidence to the world that you have walked with God, not only in his special ordinances, but in your daily concerns and intercourse with the world? Have the world claimed you, or opposed you? It is impossible for any to walk closely and constantly with God, and not manifest it, in a greater or less degree, to the world. The men of the world do not feel indifferent to those who forsake, and condemn, and oppose them. If you have walked with God, he has given you evidence of it; and the world have given you evidence of it. Be entreated to ascertain what evidence you have, for you, or against you. You may and ought to do this, for your present and future peace.

Finally, This subject exhorts all who have not hitherto walked with God, to walk with him. He commands you to walk with him. He invites you to walk with him. He promises you the highest tokens of his favor, if you will walk with him. He will protect you from your visible and invisible enemies; he will give you inward peace and tranquillity; he will prepare you for a peaceful death, and a blessed immortality. But if you refuse to walk with him, he has threatened to banish you -from his presence. And he has recorded, for your warning and admonition, his awful treatment of those who have refused to walk with him. The old world refused, and were swept away by the besom of destruction. Sodom and Gomorrah refused to walk with him, and he set them forth as ensamples, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. The Jews in Christ's day refused to follow him, and walk with him, and he destroyed them by most exemplary judgments. And God still says, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." Are you prepared to meet such tremendous consequences of divine wrath? Turn, turn ye, therefore, for why will ye die?

SERMON XXVI.

TRIAL OF ABRAHAM.

AND he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest; and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of. - GENESIS, Xxii. 2.

THIS is the most extraordinary command which we find in scripture. In order to set it in the most intelligible and instructive light, I shall make the following inquiries.

I. Let us inquire, whether God had a right to give this command to Abraham. The enemies of divine revelation allege this command, as an unanswerable objection against the inspiration of the Mosaic history. They challenge all the divines in the world, to reconcile this command with the law of nature written in every human heart. They say, it is a plain violation of that rule of right which is founded in the nature of things, for any man to imbrue his hands in the blood of his child. They say, if such an action be not wrong, it is impossible to prove any action to be so; for it is nothing less than murder, which is repugnant to every dictate of justice, benevolence and humanity. But however plausible these objections against the divine command may appear, at first view, they are entirely groundless. For,

In the first place, God did not command Abraham to murder Isaac, or to take away his life from malice prepense. He required him only to offer him a burnt sacrifice; and though this implied the taking away of life, yet it did not imply any thing of the nature of murder. God required Abraham to take his son, his only son, whom he loved, and in the exercise of love to him, to offer him a burnt sacrifice. This was essentially different

from requiring him to slay his son, as Cain slew his brother Abel, from malice prepense. It is impossible to see that there was any thing morally evil, or in its own nature wrong, in the divine command to Abraham. God required nothing of Abraham but what he could do in the exercise of that love which is the fulfilling of the law. It was no more intrinsically wrong, for God to require Abraham to sacrifice his son in the exercise of pure benevolence, than it was to require him to leave his country, his kindred, and his father's family, and sojourn in a strange land. None can object to this command as being wrong in the nature of things, without first perverting the plain and obvious meaning of it. According to both the letter and spirit of it, it was entirely consistent with the moral rectitude of the Deity, to require Abraham to sacrifice his son.

In the next place, it must be allowed that God himself had an original and independent right to take away that life from Isaac, which he had of his mere sovereignty given him. It is a divine and self evident truth, that he has a right to do what he will with his own creatures. And this right God not only claims, but constantly exercises, in respect to the lives of men. He taketh away, and who can hinder him? And he takes away when, and where, and by whom he pleases. He sometimes takes away with a stroke of his own hand, and sometimes by the stroke of the assassin, and murderer, and the executioners of justice. He commanded Samuel to hew Agag in pieces before the Lord. His own right to take away the life of man, gives him full right to command whom he pleases to take away the life of another. He had, therefore, an absolute right to command Abraham to take away his son's life. And his command to take away his son's life, no more required him to murder Isaac, than his command to Saul to slay Agag, required him to murder that captivated king.

Farthermore, God has a right to require men to do that at one time, which he has forbidden them to do at another. Though he had forbidden men to offer human sacrifices in general, yet he had a right to require Abraham, in particular, to offer up Isaac as a burnt sacrifice. And after he had requir ed him to sacrifice Isaac, he had a right to forbid him to do it, as he actually did. Though God forbid Balaam, at first, to comply with the request of Balak, and go with the messengers whom he sent to him, yet afterwards he told Balaam to go with them. God has a right to countermand his own orders. As there was nothing morally evil in God's commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son, so there was no inconsistency in his commanding him to do it; notwithstanding his general prohibition to mankind to offer human sacrifices. If we only view the